{"id":1361,"date":"2016-01-14T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T12:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=1361"},"modified":"2025-04-09T21:45:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T20:45:35","slug":"first-step-good-prospect-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/first-step-good-prospect-base\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s The First Step to Outbound Prospecting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good email copy is important. In 2015, I wrote over 40 posts<\/a> on various aspects of good cold email copy. But even with the best copy but no people to send it to — we’re stuck. So except for good copy, we need a list of contacts for our outbound prospecting.<\/p>\n

Outbound prospecting isn’t easy. Building a prospect list is hard. It requires lots of time and effort. And with respect to your time and effort, there’s one thing you need to do before<\/em> you roll up your sleeves and start collecting contacts. Actually, it’s a\u00a0question you need to answer to yourself. Here’s the question and how to find the answer.<\/p>\n

Question: “Who is the person you would want as your client?”<\/h2>\n

An off-the-cuff answer: “Whoever wants my product or service and is willing to pay for it (preferably a lot of money for a long period of time).”<\/strong><\/p>\n

If that’s your answer to this question, you sooo need to keep reading…<\/p>\n

That seems to be\u00a0a quite common answer to this question. Even if we don’t say it out loud, we think that to ourselves. And even if we don’t articulate it at all, we often act upon this definition of our client, even before investing our efforts in outbound prospecting.<\/p>\n

And no wonder about that. Because that’s what feels natural and intuitive:<\/p>\n

Business can only exist thanks to paying customers. Without the customers, there’s no business. Whoever wants to pay for our product or service is most welcome to do so. We feel like we shouldn’t miss any opportunity to get a new paying customer. Whoever they are.<\/p>\n

But…<\/h2>\n

The problem with this definition of a customer starts when we realize that the customers won’t just spontaneously crowd around our product or service eager to use it and pay for it. They won’t just magically appear.<\/p>\n

It is we who need to make sure the customers will be there.<\/p>\n

We need to create the demand for our product or service among a group of people. We need to attract them. We need to earn their trust. We need to make them succeed thanks to our product or service. And only that’s how we may\u00a0let them be willing to pay for what we’re offering.<\/p>\n

Now, see what happens when we take the “whoever<\/em>” part from our off-the-cuff definition of a customer and try to fit it in the “we need to…<\/em>” sentences above:<\/p>\n